December 31st 2020

The last day, and the last blog of the year.

AND what a year. At this time last year I was busy trying to persuade you to come to some of Hedsor Jazz’s gigs in January and February 2020.

If only I could do that today. I’m sure that the list of gigs if produced for the year we are about to enter we would have a queue at the door every Thursday!! When coronavirus 19 lets us have live jazz at Hedsor Club we will just have to see, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to see and listen and talk with all the people we were so used to being with EVERY Thursday. 

Today, just as a further recollection of the superb quality of jazz we previously took for granted, here is a link to a dropbox folder that contains all of the music and artwork from that 23rd of January 2020 Hedsor Jazz concert.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5rrohoxg8qsxplb/AADzPiIRKcryJMP6RKKUdyJ8a?dl=0

All I have been able to do via my writings since the beginning of March is to provide a means of looking backwards. Past photos, past music, perhaps past memories but with current links. I think we have all discovered what a great package of entertainment YouTube is. I’m sure at some future point the owners will want more reward from us than they currently get. 

I am old enough (definitely!) to remember conversations about “The National Debt”, and how everything we could do to reduce it had to be done. Mainly of course, this was to pay back the U.S.A. for the armaments and food they had exported to the UK to enable us to carry on with the war. “Export or Die” was one of the slogans at the time. Of course we also had to support that beaten nation Germany. The Marshal Plan was an American Idea, but all of the winning survivors had to make a contribution.

Compensations? Yes, it didn’t beat rationing but jazz became more available. I can still remember walking to Hammersmith Broadway and buying a 78 of Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5. It wasn’t long into the 40/50 decade that LP’s came, and “The Buck Clayton Jam Sessions” was on my (revised) turntable. I say revised, because it now came as an electric turntable with 3 speeds.

I can also remember going it to Dobells at 77 Charing Cross Road and buying a 78 of Chris Barber’s “Chimes Blues”, and as he was at the cash desk at the time, asking him to sign it, which he did, on the tax label!

One of the LP’s that got played to death in the early 50’s was “Humph at the Conway”, which got so played I had to buy another copy. BUT it introduced me to Bruce Turner, and began my growing love of a wider style of jazz than was thought of as being “traditional“!! The Dirty Bopper (as Birmingham named him) had sown his seeds.

So when I saw that Upbeat Jazz had discovered more Humph playing in London’s Conway hall, I added it to my Christmas list, and lo, the Father Christmas of the post duly delivered it for me to unwrap on Christmas morning.

It isn’t as iconic as the first, but this one recorded in 1969 is great fun. It has terrific bounce, and is performed by some of Humph’s old associates, including on trombone Keith Christie and on clarinet, of course, Wally Fawkes, plus some more recent additions such as Mick Pyne on piano (who was in a later Humph Band), and Dave Green on bass.

Humph did a broadcast and I think made a recording of just himself with pianist Mick Pyne and Peter Clayton announced it as the only band that could get to gigs on a tandem!

However, do look out for “Conway Hall Revisited” on Upbeat Jazz URCD305, and I’m sure Liz Biddle will be very pleased (she owns the label!). I think you will be very pleased too with your purchase. Sadly no Bruce Turner.

That’s all for this year folks. Let us hope that 2021 will be a remarkable year for a lot of better reasons than 2020 was. 

Stay safe, take the jab, and as Arabs used to say “May all your children be boys”. 

I think they meant "be prosperous"!!